A gap in arts education

Students at Orange County's poorer elementary schools are less likely to be taught art or music than those at schools that are better off, a new countywide study shows.

The study, conducted by the Orange County Arts Education Center, will be released Monday. It surveyed arts instruction at all Orange County public schools with the aim of finding out how much access the district's approximately 175,000 students have to the arts.

The good news is that every school offers some kind of instruction in visual art, music, theater or dance. The bad news? Of the 15 percent of the county's elementary schools with no visual-arts teacher, the vast majority are Title I schools -- those with the highest number of low-income families.

The fear is that such a discrepancy will grow as school budgets are slashed.

"Because of the makeup of Title I schools and the extra challenges of services that are required, they've had a hard time keeping up the numbers," said Scott Evans, director of the arts education center, a joint program of the county and Orange County Public Schools. "Those kids have lost access to arts programs at a greater proportion than other students."

The survey's goal, Evans said, was to discover where arts education stands now in an effort to expand it in the future. One happy finding was that overall arts education is in better shape than many arts supporters thought.

"The most encouraging result that we've had is that many principals say, through their budgeting, that they value arts education in their schools.

"It's awful to see that 10,000 [elementary] kids don't have art. But it's encouraging to see that 69,000 do. It's really critical for people to know that -- so that in the next round [of budget cuts] people will know that there's something to support."

Lino Rodriguez, principal of Grand Avenue Primary Learning Center, doesn't downplay the challenges of budgeting for a school with many low-income students. But he maintains the importance of keeping the arts in his school, which is in low-income Holden Heights.

"For me, the arts are an opportunity to enhance learning. I see what it does for our students and what it does for our teachers," Rodriguez said.

"Teachers are able to take it to the next level, to engage different parts of the brain," he said.

Evans also wants the public to realize the importance of the arts in future jobs for the county's entertainment industry.

"Orange County offering arts education is so critical because it's a good chance that [students] would have jobs," he said. "It's what our kids require to be successful. They've got to have those experiences."

The arts-education center will conduct the same survey again in October to see how arts programs withstand more budget cuts.

"Here's what we have now," Evans said. "It's not realistic right now to grow. But let's watch it -- and not lose what we have."